Apple Music showing previews but won't play any songs

Subscribed to Apple Music. iCloud Sync with MacBook Pro. When I search for a song, it will show in Play window, but when I select the ... it shows PREVIEW and will not play. This particularly frustrating as I own the the original CDs that I had ripped to my MacBook Pro, prior to subscribing. I also occasionally upload self created content, that often has sync issues.


Apple Music has been a let down.


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Getting PREVIEW in music I searched for

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.6

Posted on Aug 8, 2025 5:51 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Aug 11, 2025 11:56 AM

Video files are not eligible for the cloud music library. Are these actually videos, or otherwise incorrectly formatted? Third-party tools may be able to extract audio for you if required.


With any track that has the status Error you can try right-clicking, then Add to Library in order to get Music to have another attempt at matching/uploading that item.


The same might work for tracks that are Waiting, although the faded tracks in your images might represent tracks from another library or device that have yet to finish processing there. On a computer you can also use File > Library > Update Cloud Library in an attempt to resume processing of incomplete updates.


The cloud music library will only accept unique tracks, those marked as duplicates will share properties with other tracks that have already been successfully matched or uploaded. You should eliminate same album duplicates from your library while retaining an original matched/uploaded/purchased copy. See Duplicate songs in iTunes/Music - Apple Community.


The cloud library won't take songs that are too long/short and too high/low a bitrate, and I don't think it particularly likes mono tracks. Your 30 second tracks with long names but no artist/album/track number metadata may also be an issue. Are they stored locally, or waiting to upload from some other computer or device?


Protected AAC files from your active Apple Account should already be included in your cloud library as part of your unhidden purchase history. Any purchases made with a different account will be ineligible. This may include purchases made with the same Apple ID when it was associated with a different email address, if you have ever changed that. Burning to audio CD and ripping back DRM free copies may be a workaround here.


tt2

22 replies

Aug 17, 2025 1:45 PM in response to turingtest2

It would have been nice if my purchased song lists from another AppleID (with my name and same Amex account method of payment) would have showed up as a Match to new AppleMusic library. I would technically not have been transferring AAC files to AppleMusic, just allowing my old playlists to match. If I discontinued my @me AppleMusic subscription, I'd expect they be removed from Cloud anyway.


Also, do you know of a video player that functions similar to AppleMusic, where you can set up Playlists? iMovie does not have that capability, nor does Quicktime.

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Apple Music showing previews but won't play any songs

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